Aliens, my rear end (part 1)
by GroundPetrel
Summary: A vicious crocodilian with a septic bite is running loose. A mysterious team gets it back home at great cost...only to have it turn up in England. A strange woman is found at the scene, and Becker is bitten. Our heroes have less than twelve hours to save him.
1. Chapter 1: Faultline

**Disclaimer: I don't own Primeval. If I did, I would be producing more episodes and working on a movie, instead of leaving the show to gather dust and the movie to burn in Development Hell. **

**This episode is dedicated to Michael Dorn, because I want to be Worf more than anything else in the world, and to Sir Patrick Stewart, because he is simply the most awesome person in the world. **

**Prologue: **

**Kansas, United States. Undisclosed location. **

Villette Madeline Tcherine's lungs were burning from lack of oxygen. Her legs, specially altered for leaping and climbing, were not well suited to cross-country, and she was low on energy anyway after missing three straight nights of sleep.

Of course, resting now wasn't an option, not with a fully-grown fifteen-foot-long fleshreaver with an armor-plated back and septic growths of reeking bacteria coating its reptilian body on her tail. One bite from a fleshreaver, and you were dead in twenty-four hours. The bacteria that had a symbiosis with the vicious crocs were resistant to all conventional therapies, incredibly aggressive, and released cytotoxic chemicals that literally melted flesh.

Villette (CIA agent number A52-GMHX-7, codename Sabertooth) noted rather sarcastically to herself that she had been an augment for a grand total of six months now, and it would be a real shame to die at the teeth of a fleshreaver now.

Davis's voice sounded in her earpiece.

"Right, Jake just called in from base. I need you to head due east—oh, wait, you're already doing that. Handy things these locators…"

"Fleshreaver on my tail!" gasped Villette.

"Sorry, sorry. We need you to lead it to the anomaly. We've evacuated everyone back a hundred yards, and Stephanie's prepping her helmet. If it's still fifty feet or so behind you…"

"It's maybe…twenty feet back! How much…further do I…have to…run?"

"Only a quarter-mile. Try to not go too fast—we don't want it to lose interest."

"I'm…barely…keeping…pace…with it. Ian, you…said this was…an ambush…predator!"

The team nerd's voice was a rather unique mixture of terror and embarrassment.

"Well, I…it looks like an ambush predator! It's got all sorts of classic ambush predator features! How was I supposed to know that it could run cross-country?"

"Let me handle this," said Stephanie briskly. "Sabertooth, I have my helmet on and primed. You get that thing through, and get back. I'll close the anomaly as soon as you're through. OK?"

"Got…it. Just…Don't…"

"Heh, don't worry. I won't close it on you."

"Good…to…know!"

The fleshreaver snarled behind her. Villette didn't need to look back—she already knew what she would see. Fangs, horns, and reeking yellow bacterial film, reeking of sepsis and malodorous toxins. Hooked temporomandibular horns used in mating fights, the inch-thick scute that protected the braincase from conventional weapons, and _teeth_. Far too many teeth, of all vaguely triangular shapes and sizes, including a set of extra jaws inside the main upper set.

Just thinking about the teeth lent Villette extra speed.

**Part 1: **

**April's apartment. **

"You're sure about this?"

August was pacing the small living room area. Her flaming red hair was loose, which April found to be mildly distracting.

"One hundred percent. I smelled her. She got away."

"The modifications necessary for her augments…"

"Are impressive, I know. We all know. Do you have the video, by the way?"

August pulled an SD card out of her pocket and tossed it to April, who caught it deftly.

"Thirty minutes of torture vid. He was tough. Normally I'd charge you four bucks a minute for that, but we're all friends here."

"Did you have fun?"

"Yeah," sighed the other augment blissfully. "Best I've had since my first time."

"Nice. Right. Back to business."

"Alright. So the higher-ups have you stuck in a holding pattern?"

"Unfortunately. I can't go after Agent Raven now, and I don't know her actual identity. Would you…"

"Sure. You owe me a hot date in Paris, with a victim for the night, though."

"Of course. I might need backup soon, by the way—I think the ARC team is suspicious."

"Oh, dearie me—had a slip-up?"

"Accent broke. Just a little, Muscovite instead of Urals. Becker may have caught it, though."

"Sucks. Hey, you're going to tape it, right?"

"I have spare cameras set up. Devil of a time putting 'em in, let me tell you."

"Sweet. Hope you enjoy Maitland."

August picked up her coat and threw it on.

"I'll go hunt Raven. Try to enjoy your holding pattern, eh?"

"Sure."

April's phone rang as August left. Becker.

"_Da_, _anglitsz tovarishch_?"

"We have another. It's up in Scotland, middle of nowhere. We're airlifting out. Meet us at Heathrow."

"Understood."

**Abby Maitland's apartment. London, England. **

Connor Temple had everything set up by the time Abby stumbled sleepily out of bed. Toast—sans socks, this time—cereal, and two cups of hot tea. The official Star Trek: The Next Generation Klingon mug was his, and the perfectly ordinary white one Abby's. She would not be happy if it were the other way 'round.

"Morning," Abby yawned as she stumbled blearily into the kitchen.

"Morning, luv," said Connor, pouring some milk for his cereal. "Toast on the table, and I can cook us some eggs if you like."

"Aaw—shouldn't have."

She sat down anyway, still in her pajamas—not that Connor was any better; he was in a Darth Vader bathrobe and his lucky Captain Kirk boxers—and dug in anyway.

"Me swelling's all gone."

"That's nice."

"Becker said that he'd love to be best man. For our wedding, and all. And Lester said that he would marry us. Said it was his genuine pleasure."

"_Lester_ said _that_?"

"Eh, he said something about us deserving some kind of reward for saving the world again. And we didn't get a pay rise, so…"

"Ah, I see. Still, it's not something that I think of Lester saying."

"True, that. Oh, and there's a Star Trek convention in town in two months. Leonard Nimoy and Patrick Stewart and William Shatner and George Takei and Wil Wheaton and Michael Dorn and all those blokes'll be in London!"

"I suppose we could go see that. How many days is it?"

"All week! Of course, Lester'd never let us go…"

"Well…Lester owes me a favor or two. I'll see what I can do."

"You're amazing, Abby!"

She blushed a little. "I know. You tell me every day, after all."

He was about to reply when their portable detectors went off.

"Ah, great. One up in Scotland."

"I'll get the car ready, you pack. Remember your airsickness pills, honey!"

"Will do, luv!"

Connor took the stairs two at a time, and Abby dug into the couch cushions for the keys.

"I've got the car keys! I'll get changed and then we leave!"

Connor hollered something unintelligible as Abby dug through her closet for her jeans.

**Anomaly Research Centre. **

"Becker. Black box?"

"Thanks, darling," said Captain Hilary Becker, kissing his girlfriend (!) Jess Parker on the cheek and racing for the lift door with an armload of weaponry.

That dinner date had been a resounding success. She had come back for more the next day, and the next—and yeah, that third night had been something else.

Abby was now cracking James Bond jokes at him whenever they ran into each other, but he didn't care. Besides, he knew that the jokes reflected positively on his masculinity.

The squad piled into the elevator behind him. Otis was the first to speak up.

"So…how is she, sir?"

"Otis, have you ever seen a James Bond movie?"

"Yeah, I saw Moonraker once. Piece of crap movie."

"Right. You remember the final scene?"

"Where Bond and the girl of the week are screwing in the space shuttle?"

"Yeah. That's what it was like. Only without the boss watching, of course. And Jess is much more…interesting than a Bond girl."

"Wow."

"You aren't passing around money back there, are you?"

"Er…"

"It's fine. Who bet against me?"

"Er…Smythe did, sir."

"Heh. Smythe, you can clean the armory next week. How much did you lose, anyway?"

"Twenty pounds, sir."

"Consider yourself lucky. Don't bet against my manly talents."

To Becker's eternal cosmic commendation, he kept a straight face through that comment.

**Unknown location. 37,012,016 CE. **

Villette Tcherine burst through the anomaly, fleshreaver hot on her tail, and promptly leaped six feet straight up into a tree.

The fleshreaver, smelling of rotting eggs and coated in oozing yellow slime, emerged below, roaring angrily. It sounded like fingernails on a blackboard, brought down by five or six octaves on a sound table.

The anomaly fluttered behind it. Oh, great. It was fading.

Then the anomaly shut spontaneously, and Villette knew that she was screwed.

**Kansas. **

Jason Davis, PhD (in vertebrate paleontology), saw the anomaly close and swore.

"Damn it, Stephanie! Why did you close it?"

"Davis, I'm a hundred yards back. The anomaly just closed on its own!"

"Shit. SHIT! Jake, come in!"

"Davis, you're not going to believe this. It closed, and I picked up something in England."

"Figures, we just upgraded the—wait, England?"

"Er…Scotland, actually. Middle of nowhere…"

"Shit. Concordium. They opened something..."

"It could've faultlined naturally," suggested Ian Wilson (Agent Peregrine), team geek and creature expert.

"Or the Concordium found some way to make them faultline, or this might be completely unrelated. Whatever it is, it's bad."

"This is too close to be a coincidence," mused Stephanie. "It's got to be a faultline, whether natural or artificial. And that means that Villette's in danger even if she makes it out."

"Right. Back to base and mobilize. We go in hot. Jake, call Clandestine Ops and Section 9. See what and who they can spare. Jimmy, I want you to sit this one out."

"Screw that, Davis, she's my girlfriend…"

"No. I need everyone in top form. Jake, where's Raven?"

"Workout room. She's on her weekly marathon flight."

"Shut off the fan and tell her to get prepped. We need a sniper. Joan, double meds, I can't have your hormone issues going wild on this."

"Oh, so the minor and the nympho with bad hormone augments get to go rescue my girlfriend, but _I_ get to stay behind and stew. What's up with that?"

"Raven can shoot a man's eye out from a mile away, and Joan can be anyone. We're going in full lethal, so your augments are less useful. Besides, they might send one of the Twelve on the base, and Justin's still in his augment coma. We need you at base."

"Damn it, Davis..."

"I mean it, Jimmy! Now come on, everyone back to the copter. We need to move."

**37 million CE. **

Villette knew what the anomaly popping up a quarter-mile away meant. Fautline.

"Aw, shit. I hate JF protocol."

JF protocol. Contain at any cost. Life, health, and ethics are immaterial. Only shutting down the anomaly and keeping it under wraps matters. Only used in cases of faultlining anomalies and junctions.

Villette hated JF protocol. Things always went wrong when it was active—usually painful things.

Well, only one thing for it. Head for the anomaly and hope that she got back before it faultlined again, and that whoever was on the other side could kill the croc. Risky, but better than having a fleshreaver loose at one end of a faultlining anomaly.

Villette steeled herself and leaped.

**And that's part 1. Coming up this episode: lots of action, Becker going badass, Becker being injured, Connor trying to go badass, Connor falling off a rock. I'd say more, but I am evil. Mwahahahahahahaaa! **


	2. Chapter 2: Bitten

**This chapter is dedicated to my mother, the most wonderful woman on Earth, and to Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen, who I will be seeing on Broadway this December in Waiting for Godot. I'm so excited! **

**Obviously, I don't own Primeval. The OCs, however, are mine. This is non-for-profit fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended. **

**Part 2: **

**ARC personnel transport aircraft (retrofitted surplus C-130 Hercules transport plane). Somewhere over a Scottish heath. **

"The plan's the same as always," yelled Matt Anderson over the engine noise. "Go in, find the anomaly, lock it. This one's been open for about an hour, so there's probably an incursion. And yes, Connor, we are going to airdrop in."

"Sweet!" said Connor, putting his parachute on upside down.

"It goes on the other way up, Connor. Now, the helicopters should be there thirty minutes after we land, so we're going to need to carry our gear with us. Becker's a little busy so I'm going to split us into teams. Abby, you're with Emily and Tanya. Connor, with me and two of the security men. Becker and the rest of his squad will sweep the area. Clear? Good, we're jumping in twelve minutes. We should be less than a mile from the anomaly site when we land. Coms are up and the virus from last week should be out of the system, so this should be a little easier than last week."

"Don't jinx it, Matt!"

"Whoops. Sorry, Emily."

"Dude, we really get to skydive?"

Matt sighed.

"Yes, Connor, we really get to skydive. Now put that parachute on the right way—Abby, can you help?"

"Sure. C'mere, Connor."

**Area 52 High-Security Operations Division. Classified location (underneath Virginia). **

"Alright," said Jason Davis, PhD, stuffing an AR-15 assault rifle into a duffel bag. "We go in hot, because Villette will most likely be dead or captured by the time we get there. Taylor, you may need to kill—are you capable of doing that?"

"Yes," said the girl emotionlessly. "Especially if it's April."

"Not sure if bullets will even work on that bitch, but it's worth a shot. If it turns into a fight, we target April first—from Taylor's report, the rest of this cell is unmodified humans, so we should be able to mop them up without too much trouble if it comes to that. Ian, I want you to guard our retreat. We're going to get Villette out of Scotland—or wherever the hell they take her if they get her—and get out, fast. Stephanie, I want you with me. Joan, did you take your meds?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Take the bottle—I want your issues under control on this one. And yes, you can go to Stewie Lou's on agency time when we get back."

"Thank you, sir!"

"We have got to get you a girlfriend. I'm calling the Russians once we get into the plane—Ian, bring that grenade belt—and I'll see if Irina Ivanova can send us some help."

"Professor, should I bring Shockers as well?"

"Sure, Steph—here's a spare duffel. Remember, our primary objective is rescuing Villette. Terminating April is our secondary objective. Do NOT try to solo April—you all remember what happened last time. Clandestine Ops is tracking her movements for us—they still think that she's nothing more than Lyudmilla Dovchenko, Ukrainian hit woman, but the intel is good nonetheless. They've found an apartment and a possible workplace at a British government building—nobody we can contact can tell us anything about the place, but we can be reasonably certain that it's a Concordium research lab and that the British government has been subverted."

"Does April know about the surveillance?" asked Stephanie.

"We can assume so, but she hasn't done anything yet. She had a visitor this morning—a redhead who introduced herself to the landlady as Prudence Wilson—an obvious pseudonym."

"Which one is she?"

"I think she's August. Augustus—Latin, it translates loosely as "prudence" or "wisdom". We couldn't get details about why she was there, but we can assume that it wasn't for anything good."

"You have guards on my dad and friends, right, Davis?"

"Yes, Taylor. Operation Saber personnel. Fully kitted out. They should be able to keep your dad and friends safe for the time being. If you need to relocate, then we relocate you back over here, OK?"

"Sure. It's getting hard to commute back and I'm running low on excused absences."

"If we keep you in England, we could set you up with some operatives and a detector array—that might help. Have Justin train them once he's out of his augment coma."

"He'll be done in a week, Davis. The gills are forming properly."

"Excellent. Thanks, Stephanie. OK, people, I want us at the airport in ten minutes!"

**Anomaly Research Centre. **

James Lester was in a rather foul mood. His coffee maker had exploded (don't even ask), ruining his favorite tie, the Minister, Harold Duvall, had been assassinated by decapitation (who knows why him and not someone with an actual IQ score), and all Defense Ministry operatives and associated personnel were being required to go through rigorous background checks after suspicious, booby-trapped files were discovered in the late Minister's computer. Not the best of weekends, in other words.

"Give me some good news, Parker," Lester growled as he strode angrily up to the detector.

"Well, sir—nobody's been hurt yet, Becker and I had the most _wonderful _night last night, and…"

"Ah, good—I presume that you two consider yourselves a couple at last?"

"Er…yes, sir."

"Good. Now I may just be able to tolerate your insufferable romance. Anything else?"

"Well, sir, a woman from the Prime Minister's office called—something about how they found record of your actions during the period surrounding Christine Johnson's takeover of the ARC, the Ethan Dobrowski incident, and New Dawn, and the Minister's office considers your performance exemplary. She said that she's coming over to vet you for a knighthood, sir!"

James Lester's heart skipped a beat right there.

"You're sure? I'm not going to spend two hours recommending, oh, Mr. Temple, this time around?"

"No, sir—they specifically said you, sir. She's going to be coming by later—I did a check and she doesn't have the clearance to know details about us, so I recommend getting this done away from the creatures."

"I wasn't going to do an interview in the menagerie. When?"

"Four o'clock, sir."

"Excellent. I'll have time to catch up with an old friend first. My god, it's been almost a year since I spoke to Yuri last, hasn't it? Well, keep an eye on them, Jess, and I do hope that you enjoyed yourself last night."

"Oh, it was like a scene from one of those bodice-rippers that Emily likes to laugh at. He was so…well…"

"I get the picture. No need to bludgeon me with specifics."

His dry tone completely failed to hide his internal preoccupation with a potential knighthood. This might not be such a bad day after all…

**Scotland. **

Villette Tcherine was having a singularly bad day. She was currently stuck on top of a rock with a hungry fleshreaver pacing barely three feet below, and worse, it was starting to lose interest.

The anomaly hadn't faultlined again yet, but the fleshreaver was showing no signs of homesickness, even after an hour of fruitless waiting. Really, it had been so much easier—relatively speaking—the first time she'd encountered one of these monsters. A whole team for backup, no crick in her back from an hour of crouching on top of a rock, and lots of weapons. Now all she had were her claws, her fangs, and what felt like a pulled muscle in her back. This was going to be a rough day.

Then Villette placed that annoying background noise as a military transport aircraft as about ten people dropped out from the clouds about a mile away, and she realized that no matter how poorly her day had been going so far, it was about to get a whole lot worse.

**POV: Becker. **

Captain Hilary Becker landed, cut his parachute, and opened the weapons box in one fluid movement. Behind him, Connor cut his chute early and tumbled to the ground with a muffled yelp.

"Otis, Smythe, with me. The rest of you, fan out like Matt said."

"Hey, _tovarishch_, do you smell that?"

"What, Tanya?"

"Like moldy stroganoff. Or perhaps rotting goose eggs. Does anyone else smell it?"

Becker paused.

"Yeah. Like that time Dawson left his sandwich out for two days by accident in Kandahar. Rank."

"That is not good. The last creature we fought that smelled like that—was not nice."

"Can't be worse than a future predator."

"If the future predators are the swift black bat things, then yes, it can be worse. The creature I am thinking about—we call it…well, it translates as "fleshreaver". It is an aggressive predatory crocodilian with a septic bite. All members of the species are carriers of a superbacteria related to _Staphylococcus_ that causes a disease that in your language is called necrotizing fasciitis."

"Flesh-eating bacteria?"

"_Da_. That would be one way to describe it. It is immune to all conventional antibiotics and is more aggressive than anthrax. One bite and you are dead within the day. Immediate amputation is the only thing that will save you."

"Right. Spread out. Switch to lethals. Do you Russians have EMDs?"

"_Da_, we have a version that we use. Not as powerful as these, but serviceable."

"Were they effective?"

"_Nyet_. Not powerful enough. The nervous system is insulated somehow."

"Right. Lethals, everyone except Connor. Shoot on sight. Move out!"

"Why do I get stuck with an EMD?"

"Because you have a disturbing knack for shooting others accidentally. Unconscious people I can handle. Dead or paralyzed people? Not so much."

It was at that karmically appropriate point in time that the fleshreaver leaped over the edge of the hollow onto a fortuitously empty spot that up until ten seconds before had been occupied by Matt Anderson.

The first impression Captain Becker had was of _teeth_.

The thing had some sort of horns on its lower cheekbones, the tips coated, like everything else, with yellow ooze. They looked almost like tusks—no, the tusks, per se, were those huge fangs about a third of the way back along its jaws. There were about fifty teeth visible, no, more than a hundred now that it had opened its mouth—two hundred, there was a secondary row of teeth inside the jaw from the main rows—no, two hundred fifty, there was _another set of upper jaws_, with two rows of teeth, ranging from about halfway back to the back of the jaws. Wow.

"Holy ****!" yelled Becker, pulling out his new gun.

He'd lovingly cleaned it just that morning, adding a custom magazine of Teflon-coated armor-piercing bullets and scouring it of nonexistent grime. If ever a gun could be perfectly effective at close range, this gun was it.

The creature turned slightly and roared at Connor. Becker shot it in the head.

The bullet _bounced off_. A thick, ooze-covered scale covered the entire braincase, and apparently it was layered in such a way that it could deflect bullets. Wonderful.

That's not to say that the bullet had no effect—the creature stumbled, and shook its head, snarling.

_Oh, great,_ thought Captain Hilary Becker. _I've given it a headache, made this personal, and pissed it off, all with one shot. That's Darwin Award material if I ever saw it_.

The fleshreaver cocked its head slightly to the side and looked at Becker with one red eye, full to the brim with rage and malice. Then it opened its jaws and roared.

The stench was almost enough to knock Becker out. He heard screaming, shouts, and gunfire as the others shot at the creature, but its body seemed to be just as invulnerable as its head.

The fleshreaver leaped, and Becker ran.

He jinked sideways first, and the fleshreaver barreled past at full speed, snapping at his flying heel. Not too agile then—an ambush predator. Probably not that fast, but easily fast enough for a human. Maybe a twenty-mile-per-hour top speed over medium distances. Damn it, jeeps would've been really useful here.

Becker rolled to his feet and ran.

"Move! Move! It's heading for me, come after it and shoot it in the ass!"

The fleshreaver turned for Becker again, bellowing angrily.

Becker leaped out of the hollow, using his hands to get over a small boulder. He could hear the shouts, gunfire, and the fetid breath of the creature behind him. It was getting closer, its slavering jaws snapping at his legs as he ran.

Someone—or some_thing_—was coming towards him from ahead and to his left, haring along with a bounding gait. It had a mane of hair flowing from its head and seemed to be _leaping_, almost, like a deer, on two hind legs.

"Damn it—get away! Get away, damn it! It's…"

Becker tripped over a stone and went flying, hitting his head on another rock. While in flight, his left leg fetched up against the creature's front fangs, tearing his pants and scraping his skin, a deep cut near the ankle.

The shape—a woman in a jet-black bodysuit with a thick neck, a Terminator build, and malformed, cat-like legs, _leaped_.

She traveled over twenty feet in one prodigious bound, crashing into the fleshreaver as it passed over Becker and knocking the monster sideways.

_Impossible_. No human could possibly do that, especially not with legs like—oh, no, his _leg_! He'd been scratched by its teeth. Superbacteria. Dead in twenty-four hours. With that kind of speed, he'd be a goner in twelve.

The fleshreaver snapped at the woman, and she screamed with pain as her forearm was nabbed. She had huge upper canines and a vaguely _feline_ face. She wasn't human. That was the only explanation. Damn, his leg hurt. Fuzzy. Thoughts so fuzzy. Head hurt. Pain, forehead. Hit it, must've.

The woman grabbed at the fleshreaver's neck with large, clawed hands. She drew blood—the scales there were small and thin. The monster roared, and tossed her sideways. She landed on her feet, despite the mangled arm. The fleshreaver snarled and charged.

Becker knew akido fighting stances when he saw them, and that woman—_thing_—was definitely a practiced martial artist. She—_it_—dodged lightly sideways as the fleshreaver snapped at her, and used her non-mangled arm to pull herself onto its reeking back. She held it between her legs as it thrashed, seeking its throat with her claws.

She howled with triumph and _yanked_, pulling something—probably most of the creature's trachea and associated organs—from the fleshreaver's throat. The monster stumbled and collapsed.

The woman stood unsteadily, holding her arm and swearing. Eastern European accent. Balkans, maybe Romanian. She pronounced "shit" in a mangled French-American way though.

"Are you OK? Did you get bitten—crap, you did. I'm pretty much screwed as soon as your bosses get your hands on me, but you might live if they find a way to beat the bug in twelve hours. I need to talk to your superiors immediately, because—what the?"

And then a blue EMD pulse hit her in the chest as she looked up and turned, startled. The woman stuttered in place for a second, then collapsed.

Tanya was there, holding an EMD pointed at the fallen woman, crisp blond hair blowing slightly in the breeze, and Becker realized then why she looked so familiar.

If she was the same person—she had survived a fall that would've killed any human. Either she was using time itself somehow, or she wasn't human, either.

And the woman, the injured one—she had something to do with it, too. Why else would Tanya—no, _April_—shoot a woman who wasn't a threat? She—or at least her cover—was a pro, she wouldn't make a rookie mistake like that. Rival operations. Tanya's accent had slipped before, she wasn't Russian. Dutch if he had to place her, maybe American. A spy, maybe, or—an assassin. Someone had killed Lester's boss, the Minister. Somebody who could jump out of a high-rise after killing a man, literally seconds ahead of his guards, in the middle of the night, and get away with ease. Someone who _wasn't human_.

Becker could feel himself losing consciousness, but he kept thinking frantically, hoping to remember it later if he survived. Tanya/April wasn't human, she wasn't really a Russian operative, she was…what? An assassin, for sure. Who was her target? Connor? No, he was valuable, his brain was at least, and he could do things, amazing things, if properly manipulated. Abby? No, losing her would break Connor. Lester? No, the ARC team was too canny to accept a planted boss, look what had happened when Christine Johnson took over. Matt? Maybe, but he had already done his part, and April was a well-managed professional, she wasn't doing this for revenge, whether hers or someone else's. Emily? Not likely. The Victorian was too obvious of a target, without the intangible value of Connor or Abby, and too naïve to need a professional killer. Besides, April had barely interacted with her at all. Becker himself? No, he hadn't done anything, even in the old days in Afghanistan. Jess? No. Not her. It would be like killing Abby to get to Connor, and Becker wasn't valuable broken like that.

As the darkness closed over his eyes, Becker reached the logical, and horrible, conclusion.

_Us. It's all of us. She's going to kill the team. _

**Dun dun dunnnnnn! **

**Story will continue approximately whenever I have the time for it—college essays and such are time-consuming. **


	3. Chapter 3: Infection

**My apologies for the delay. College applications, you know how they are…**

**This update is dedicated to the Christian Right, for their stunning success at ignoring all evidence, logic, and reality that disputes the existence of a "War on Christmas". **

**This update is also dedicated to the government of North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un, for being even more oppressive and evil than Kim Jong-il's regime. Congratulations, Lil' Kim. Daddy would be so proud of his disgusting little psychopathic monstrosity. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Primeval. If I did, I'd be working my ass off on a movie and a season 6. **

**Part Three: **

**Anomaly Research Centre. **

James Lester leaned back in his chair with a sigh. More reports, Becker's customary one-sentence summaries (the man really thought that "we didn't kill anything and no one died" was a satisfactory report?), and some requests for pay rises. The last papers were mostly from Connor, but it looked like the entire alpha team and a good two-thirds of the staff had filed for salary improvements. Wonderful.

Lester pulled out his ostensibly "smart" phone, leaving the pile of papers for later. Abby wanted to take Connor to a Star Trek convention in a few weeks, Matt wanted to talk to Lester about something important—probably more future-of-the-world stuff, just wonderful—and Becker wanted more guns.

So nothing out of the ordinary there, either.

Lester knew that he was going to get back to it eventually. With a resigned sigh, he put aside his phone and picked up the only interesting report in the whole mess.

_Harold Duvall, 1975-2015,_ he read. _Minister of Defense 2014-2015. Assassinated August 4th, 2015 by an unidentified, likely female assassin. Guards reported that Minister Duvall had been acting paranoid for several days, including an inexplicable phobia of the number twelve and demanding that all members of his office staff remove all monthly calendars from his offices. He also expressed fear in his own house and insisted on moving into an apartment in central London, on the fifteenth floor of the Smeldry Building. Minister Duvall retired early on the 4th, complaining of heartburn due to stress. Minutes after he retired, guards stationed outside his rooms heard a scream, described as fearful or terrified, and entered to see a vaguely female shape, hair in a bun and holding some sort of bladed weapon (described as a short, thick fencing foil without the basket hilt) standing over Duvall's decapitated corpse on the bed. The guards opened fire, but the assassin, apparently wearing a Kevlar bodysuit, leaped out the window, breaking it, and dropped fifteen stories apparently unaided. One guard insists that he saw the assassin running off and ducking into an alley with no apparent physical effects from the drop. Details of this event have not been released to the media, and only those with at least Level Eight Security Clearance may view this account. Background checks on guards and examination of evidence show no sign of an inside job and corroborate the guards' story. Further information will be updated. _

Lester was frankly horrified. The Minister had been an idiot, but nobody deserved that.

There was no way that any human could possibly have performed that assassination. A fifteen-story unaided drop, after hiding for multiple hours in the bedroom and evading detection by guards—impossible. Not even James Bond could do that in one of his ridiculous movies.

Lester pulled out a picture of Duvall's bed. The assassin had used a trick from a Peter Sellers movie that Lester's wife had made him see several years back, hiding in the top of the bed for hours and dropping down after cutting the fabric "ceiling". She must have been quite small, and must have had incredible strength and stamina to support her weight up there without letting herself rest on the fabric.

Lester sent an email to a friend who ran a…"personal security" corporation and offered fifty thousand euros for two weeks' relocation and protection for his family. In times like this, it was better to trust well-paid mercenaries than the government. Besides, Sven owed Lester a few favors. Giving a discount was just one way to recoup Lester's investment.

Then Jess started screaming.

**Area 52 High-Security Operations Division Long-Range stealth transport. Somewhere over the Atlantic. **

"Thanks, Irina," said Jason Davis, PhD. "I'm so sorry to hear about Tatiana. How are Petrov and Nikolai?"

"Good," said Irina Ivanova's addictive accent over the phone. "Petrov broke his leg a week ago, so we have him in a cast. He should be ready for duty in three weeks."

"Great. Any support you can give us?"

"Only baseline human Special Forces troops. I'm sorry, Davis, but we are rather stretched out as it is. The Twelve killed our B-team and mutilated Chekov last week."

"They killed our B-team too. And our C-team. And a good two-thirds of our field support staff. We have a standing policy of altering all field personnel now. Nothing drastic or obvious, but enough to give them a fighting chance at getting away."

"Clever. You keep this under wraps?"

"We have a handy little guidebook that we give people about hiding alterations. "Your New Body: A Manual for Area 52 Field Staff." It's got cartoons, puzzles, and a fold-out poster."

"You need to work on that a bit."

"Tell me about it. Well, if you're stretched that thin I guess even asking for baseline troops is a bad move."

"Thanks, Davis," said Irina, her smooth alto betraying relief and fear. "I'm genuinely sorry, but we have an active anomaly in Kamchatka and we need every man…"

"I understand. How soon can you give us augmented assistance?"

"Thirty-six hours, at best. More likely three days. Petrov is on the scene—he has multiple creatures, hundreds of witnesses, and a Concordium hit team. They have June."

"Right. You deal with that, my team will hit the Concordium guys in England and rescue Villette. Later, 'Rina."

"_Dasvidanya_, Davis. Good luck."

Davis closed his phone and turned to the rest of the team, who looked worried.

With the exception of Ian Wilson, who was playing Star Trek Online on his computer. Predictable.

"Well?" asked Stephanie.

"No good. They have a critical situation and they need every man. We're on our own."

**Scotland. **

April nearly lost her cover when she saw who had rescued Becker.

_Villette? Here? Damn it, damn it, damn it! Where the hell are June and September when you really need them? If they're all augmented to that degree…_

But that was a bad line of thought. Better to think about the fact that Villette's hair was, indeed, rather more sexy now.

_She killed a fleshreaver! That takes some serious augments—careful, April. Don't drop your cover. You're the inscrutable Russian sparrow, not yourself. _

She resisted the urge to slide out an armblade and end both Villette and Becker right then and there. The higher-ups got angry when she engaged in termination before ordered to do so, because of that one time in Beirut when she'd killed her cover alias's neighbor so slake her sadism. And she had rather strict mission parameters this time around.

The soldiers formed a rough circle with Emily while Connor checked on the creature. Abby went straight for Becker, catching a med kit as Matt threw it. Matt himself went for Villette.

"It's some kind of crocodile," shouted Connor. "Layered scales, that explains how it can deflect bullets—_wow_, that's a lot of teeth! Check this out, it's got an _internal set of jaws_ developed from the palate! I didn't know archosaurs even had the capacity to evolve that!"

"Otis, Smythe, take Emily and go lock the anomaly, now. Tanya, do you know what the heck this woman is?"

"_Nyet_," April lied. "I would assume that she is an American operative, altered with future technology. What of Becker?"

"He's inflamed _already_," said Abby. "This thing had serrated teeth, and there's some sort of yellow slime in the wound…"

"Does anyone have a knife? We need to amputate immediately." She could use her blades, but revealing herself to save someone she'd only terminate later was pointless.

"Isn't there some way to disinfect the wound?" asked Matt.

"Not that we know of. The bacteria are faster than anthrax and immune to all known antibiotics. We need to amputate his entire leg, now, or he _will_ die. The creature got at least two veins—it'll be systemic in minutes."

"_Minutes_? How fast does this stuff grow?" Abby's voice was horrified.

"Our operatives died in less than twenty-four hours. Given the woman's injury, I would estimate that she has no more than fifteen hours. Amputation is futile in her case. I need a knife, now!"

"Uh…"

"Nobody has a knife?"

"Well…" said MacFarlane, who had the decency to look embarrassed, "Captain Becker had us get going sort of quickly this morning…and we left our survival gear in the wrong jeep by accident…"

"Get them both back to the ARC, now. It is possible that there is some sort of treatment that our team overlooked. Move! Now!"

"Connor, Abby, you two soldiers, come with me and Tanya. Abby and you two soldiers, get Becker; Tanya and I will take the woman. Connor, bring the med kit. We'll set up on that big rock, wait for the helicopters. They should be here in thirty minutes."

"Matt?" asked Emily, over Coms. "The anomaly just disappeared."

"What? But it…What happened?"

"Sorry, sorry, pardon me," said Jess over Coms, "I'm back from my coffee break now; are things still under control? The anomaly just disappeared and reappeared half a kilometer away…"

"Er…Jess…are you sitting down?" said Matt with a wince.

"Yes, of course. Why?"

"Um…well…Becker kind of…"

"Your boyfriend was bitten by a future crocodile that we Russians call—well, it translates as "fleshreaver"," interrupted April, losing patience with the pathetic baselines and nearly dropping her accent. "The animal's mouth was laced with a hyperaggressive superbacterium that will necrotize, melt and consume his musculature in twenty hours, followed by complete organ failure in twenty-four. Since we have no way to amputate the affected limb before the infection spreads, and no antibiotics have any appreciable effect on this pathogen, he will die in a day. Even if some treatment were to be found, it would need to be administered within approximately twelve hours of infection to have any effect whatsoever. Allow me to extend my condolences, comrade."

Jess laughed nervously.

"Riiiiight. Becker, please tell me that this is some sort of sick joke…"

"Jess…" said Matt gently. "It's not a joke. Abby, lift him up. MacFarlane, call the helicopter and see when they can get here."

April yelped with pain and yanked the Coms bud out of her ear as Jess screamed.

**Anomaly Research Centre. **

James Lester reacted like any man who had spent five years associating screams with imminent mortal peril would. He set down his ostensibly intelligent phone, grabbed the emergency EMD he always kept taped under his desk, and stood up, then slowly but urgently moved out of his office, EMD emission tube first.

Jess was whimpering in her seat at the ADD. Lester scanned for creatures. Nothing, not even noises—other than those made by Jess, at least.

"Parker? What happened?"

"It's…Becker…they…Tanya, she…said he's going to die!"

"Is he dead, or do they have a medical kit to stop the bleeding? Oh, confound it, give me that earpiece…Anderson! Sholoshkova! What did you tell Jess about Becker? She's a bloody wreck!"

"Sir, Becker was bitten by the creature, and…"

"Well, how bad is it? Don't tell me you don't have antibiotics and bandages in the medical kit? Get a hold of yourself, Parker!"

Jess was back to sniffling now. An improvement, at least.

The Russian's voice came over Coms, colder than ice.

"Becker was bitten by a predatory crocodilian that our team calls a fleshreaver. Its mouth was laced with a superbacterium that killed our best operatives in just under twenty-four hours. He has perhaps twelve hours for us to find a treatment, and then the infection will become terminal. Traditional antibiotics are ineffective. Fleshreaver bacteria cause necrotizing fasciitis, digesting the soft tissues of infected animals while they are still alive. They also release neurotoxic compounds and a potent blood thinner."

"Is there anything these germs can't do?"

"As far as we know? They cannot be reliably transmitted through the air. They dry up too fast. Fleshreavers have pores that leak interstitial fluids onto their skin to keep the bacterial colonies going—we are not certain why. We presume that live bacterial colonies on the exterior are necessary to some part of their life cycle."

"Are they susceptible to bacteriophages?" asked Connor suddenly. "Because I've been playing with some lysogenic phages in me lab in me spare time, and they wipe the FLOOR with _Staphylococcus aureus_ like Doomsday does to the Justice League in the _Death of Superman_ story arc. It'd be _sooooo_ awesome if I got to try them out as a therapy in live patients! Please can I, Lester? Please?"

Lester felt his migraine coming on hard.

"Get Becker back here, and we can discuss that idea. Sholoshkova, would that work?"

The Russian sounded hesitant.

"_Maybe_. We did not have time to try…_alternative_ therapies when our operatives were infected. It would take a large amount of virus to have an effect; these bacteria literally eat the immune system."

"All right. The helicopter should reach your position in fifteen minutes. By that time, I want the anomaly locked, the creature covered up, and the site ready for the techs and backup staff. Connor, I demand that you ask Jess for permission before you perform ANY experimental therapies on Captain Becker. Is the incursion contained?"

"We think so, sir. Connor's been geeking out over the creature."

"Each jaw has two parallel rows of serrated teeth for maximum damage! It's got an internal set of upper jaws derived from the palate!"

"We get it, Connor. Basically, Lester, the creature's overkill incarnate."

"Wonderful. Just what I needed. Jess, are you in control of yourself?"

Jess sniffled, but nodded.

"Excellent. You can keep your cool while the apocalypse is in progress, but your boyfriend gets hurt and all ruddy hell breaks loose. Man the fort, I need to go and rearrange some appointments. Anything else to report, Matt?"

"Yes, sir. A…well, we think she's a woman, if she's even human, killed the creature and probably saved Becker's life. Tanya shot her by mistake."

"Is she alive? And what do you mean, if she's human?"

"She has fangs, Lester. They're about ten centimeters long, flattened like a saber-tooth's. Her body's mostly human—bulky, but human—but her legs are like a cat's and her fingers have claws. Tanya says that she's an American operative, altered with future technology."

Lester pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Anderson, you are the single worst practical joker…"

"It's not a joke. Sir. She was bitten by the creature; it mangled her arm pretty badly. It's inflamed _already_—holy shit, that's fast. What do we do with her?"

"Bring her back. Use her as a test subject for Connor's therapy, and interrogate her if we can save her."

"_Tovarishch_, I am not sure that that is wise. The Americans never talk, under any circumstances."

"Well, maybe we Brits know some things that you Russians never learned. Get her back, alive."

"Yes, sir," said Matt. "Connor, quit fooling around with the creature, you're going to get yourself infected!"

**And that's a wrap for today. Sorry this took so long; it's been a long, long month. **

**In case anyone has questions: **

**(1) This story series's explanation for the ARC's continued secrecy is that there are multiple governments working on anomalies, all interested in keeping the anomalies secret. The explanation used by the British was an electromagnetic event caused by the interaction of solar flares and a prototype EMP weapon that failed dramatically, creating brief electromagnetic storms across the globe. **

**The creatures were explained away as mass hallucination derived from the "electromagnetic event". Paid scientists (yeah, there are "scientists" who will spout lies for money—that's how tobacco companies put out all those studies purporting to show the safety of smoking) explained away the event in deliberately jargon-filled terms, and paid actors were used to help explain away the creatures. Paid government staff discredited the truth by starting conspiracy websites and linking the idea of secret government time experiments with the 9/11 "truther" movement and Area 51 alien conspiracies. Government hacking (courtesy of Jess) deleted all video and photo record of the event. Bodies that showed un-concealable creature damage mysteriously disappeared. **

**And not one bit of the above was accomplished by large men in black suits. **

**The Russians didn't bother with such a detailed cover-up, because, well, they're Russians. There is an actual cultural trait of Russians that comes in handy in times like this: It takes a LOT to surprise or shake a Russian. A LOT a lot. There wasn't a need for paid scientists or conspiracy websites; just destroying the evidence and repeating the official story thousands of times was deemed enough. **

**Also, the President of Russia was only willing to sign over so much of his precious, precious vacation—um, "government administration"—money to a few scientists and soldiers with experimental genetic alterations who needed cash to cover up a bunch of time holes. It's Russia; what do you expect? **

**The Americans reacted in a similar way to the British, only they had some Congresscritters go on TV and distract everybody by saying stupid racist sexist things while calling for an official investigation into the Convergence event. Three quick bribes later, and all anyone was talking about was how Senator So-and-so said something that made Bull Connor look like a model of racial tolerance. **

**Sometimes, having idiots running the place can be a good thing. **

**(2) Yeah, there are twelve women just like April. All are gratuitously overpowered. All are psychopathic to some degree. **

**(3) For Jess's reaction, I'm basically imagining what Connor would do if Abby was critically injured in the field and he was stuck hours away at the ADD. **


	4. Chapter 4: Buildup

**Disclaimer: Still don't own Primeval, still wish I did. **

**This article is dedicated to Alexander Siddig, one of the most underrated actors in the world. **

**Part 4: **

**Scotland anomaly site. 10:04 AM GMT. **

"The anomaly is locked!"

"Great, thanks Emily! The helicopter's here; we're going to evacuate Becker while you and the soldiers stay here and wait for the support teams."

Matt was frankly terrified at this point. It had been barely half an hour, and Becker's leg was already swollen. Yellow, evil-smelling pus leaked from the wound.

The Russian had said that in the absence of amputation the best treatment for fleshreaver bites was to liberally douse the affected flesh with concentrated propyl alcohol while keeping the patient in a sedative sleep. Fortunately, sedatives and alcohol were standard components of the ARC medkits, which ran more towards "field surgery" than "incidental injuries".

The woman—_thing_, really, with the fangs and the muscles, was in even worse shape. Her injured arm had been shredded and the bones cracked like a Rottweiler's chew toy. Her skin burned an angry red. Incredibly, her wounds kept clotting, despite the massive scale of her injuries. Tanya said that that was because of genetic manipulation.

Matt couldn't shake the feeling that the Russian knew more than she was letting on.

The helicopter landed on a flat portion of the rock, the wind from its rotors howling in Matt's ears, and the primary support team poured out with EMDs and sensor equipment. The soldiers and Matt picked up Becker while Tanya and Abby got the injured woman.

Connor, predictably, got lost in the bustle and fell off the rock, landing in a bush, a fact that was not realized until the helicopter quieted enough for the others to hear over their Coms units.

"Ow! Ow! Ow, prickers! Me pants! Help! Someone!"

Abby shook her head and sighed, then trotted down the slanted portion of the boulder and hauled her fiancée out of the bushes.

"Honestly, Connor, it's just heather! Come on, we need to get back so you can turn your viral toys into a miracle cure."

"Well, technically it won't be a "miracle cure", and we're still looking at only a ten percent chance at best of…"

Abby clamped her hand over his mouth before he could terrify Jess any further and frog-marched him into the waiting helicopter.

**Taylor Craig/Agent Raven's house. Undisclosed location. 11:07 AM GMT. **

"Dad, do you have everything?"

"Yeah, toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, clothes, spare pants, spare trousers, dog, dog food, contacts—you sure I won't need the portable telly?"

"The safe house has seventy-inch LCD hi-def, with satellite and all the HBO channels. Benefits of a corrupt government—my bosses are good at embezzlement. Besides, Senator Cruz, Senator Bedfellow, Congressman Henderson, and Senator Limekiller didn't really need those paychecks anyway. Given that they were some of the ones who voted to slash our budget."

"Taylor, you are one cynical young lady."

"Seeing your entire training team killed in front of you by superhuman sadistic psychopaths can do that."

"You can quit at any time, you know. Go to school, have a normal life. Ah, thank you, agent…never mind, no names, I'm sorry."

"I'll get the bag. You, agent needs-a-haircut, put my dad's bag in the trunk."

The agent, a man about the size and shape of a refrigerator, balked at the petite girl's words. Then his counterpart on the other side of the car mouthed the words _Fifty-Two_. The man gulped and took the bags.

"I can, Dad, but I don't want to. Sure, it's a shitty, dangerous job. But someone's got to do it, and it's easier for our side if I do it since I'm already altered. And believe me, our side needs all the help we can get."

"Maybe when this whole…time hole…thing blows over, then?"

"Maybe. But the Twelve…well, they're probably never going to blow over. We can train and alter people to replace us, but until that time—so assume five or ten years—we're stuck. Now, we are taking you and my dog to a safe house maintained by the agency. We have already made excuses for your job, and we have excuses for my school. That should keep you safe for at least a couple of weeks. If the Twelve find out where you are and go after you for any reason, there is an evacuation route that can take you abroad. We have a safe house in Australia that should keep you safe indefinitely if that happens."

"Is your entire team having to do this for their families?"

"Yeah. Joan's mom is on set for a month, so we've replaced her security detail with our men and infiltrated the staff. Otherwise, we're taking family members to safe houses. Fortunately, we didn't have much to start with, but it pays to be careful."

"Joan?"

"Our astrophysicist and quantum mechanics expert. The one with hormone issues. Her mom's a big-name actress."

"She must have an unusual life."

"Hell yeah. She's not supposed to exist—her mom's supposed to be four years younger than she is."

"There's a story behind that, I can tell."

"But it's classified, sorry, Dad. Agent unibrow, use the back route to the bolthole. Double-time it, I have a level 7 op to plan."

The agent couldn't suppress a gasp. Taylor's father looked at her pointedly.

"That's bad, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it is. We have reason to believe that one of our agents was captured by a hostile organization. We think that at least one of the ministries has been subverted. Russia can't send help, and the budget's too thin to bring in non-52 personnel."

"You're planning a rescue?"

"And creature termination, giving what she was being chased by before she got caught."

"What?"

"You don't want to know. Let's just say that it's ugly, nasty, and extremely dangerous. We have a contingency plan, though, if the creature hasn't been contained or terminated."

Taylor's father rubbed her shoulder.

"You can still quit at any time, you know."

"I know. But somebody's got to do this job, no matter how rough it is. Hang on, I need to make a call."

**Anomaly Research Centre. 12:37 PM GMT. **

Matt and Tanya rolled Becker in on a stretcher, the soldiers right behind with the…woman…_thing_. Becker's entire arm was now swollen, burning angry red and radiating heat.

"Connor, get started on those viruses! Abby, take the soldiers and secure that woman. We're going to use her to test for toxicity; if the plan works she needs the help more. Tanya, can you give Connor any more information about the bacteria?"

"They are gram-positive, but immune to all conventional antibiotics. Beta-lactams do not work."

"Vancomycin?" asked Connor as he ducked into his lab.

"Ineffective."

"Damn." Connor at least had the presence of mind to not shout, instead relying on his earpiece to carry on the conversation. "I'll need to get an antitoxin together, too—gram-positives can be toxic even after they lyse. Secure the patients, then come help me thaw these test tubes!"

"What medium do you have those phages in?"

"_E. coli_. K12 strain. I don't think we need to filter it out."

"With K12?" Tanya snorted as she and Matt secured the woman to one of the infirmary beds. "_Tovarishch_, that stuff dies quicker than a tropical fish on the Siberian steppes. We could pump the captain full of it and he would not even notice."

"Ha, you've got a point there. Oi, Tanya, could you get me a sample of the bacteria? I'll freeze and split the stuff to analyze the byproducts."

"Freezing does not work. The ice will shred the membranes and maybe the cell walls, but the bugs can survive it. Use a concentrated blast of gamma rays—they can take twice as much as a human can, but it will kill the stuff eventually."

"What is this stuff, the Incredible Hulk of bacteria? Actually, Hulk's immune to gamma rays and other radiation, so…"

"Focus, Connor!"

"I _am_ actually capable of multitasking, Matt!"

There was a pointed silence, punctuated by the frantic clicking of Jess racing into the secure infirmary.

"Well, sometimes I am, at least. When me allergies aren't bothering me. And I've had some tea."

This got a snort of laughter from Matt and Abby. Tanya peeled around the corner and through the open door into Connor's lab without slowing down, a Q-tip with the tip covered in a mixture of half-congealed blood and yellow slime in her latex-gloved hand.

Connor blinked. That was fast.

"Here. Do not get it on you. This stuff can get into your body through membranes, guts—anything."

Connor gingerly took the Q-tip in his freshly-gloved hand and put it onto an agar plate, rolling the tip carefully.

"Right. Let's try this. Tanya, can you pass me the bottle marked "Number Seven" in blue—never mind, I've got it. You should go help Becker."

"There is not much to be done at this point. Amputation was futile even before we got into the helicopter."

"Hooray, so it's me against the world again. You know, I could do with a TARDIS right about now."

Tanya looked quizzical. "TARDIS?"

"You know, from Doctor Who? The Doctor has a time-travelling blue box? The TARDIS? You don't know?!"

"My apologies, _tovarishch_. It was not on the required preparatory materials list."

"We've GOT to get you some sci-fi exposure…"

"Focus, Connor!"

"I'm focused, I'm focused! No need to go all Formian Taskmaster on me, Matt!"

"All _what_—you know what, never mind. Just make sure that those viruses work."

"Yeah, that's what I was DOING, before you had to go all Orc slave-driver on me with that "Focus, Connor!" shtick!"

"Shut up, both of you," said Lester over Coms, his voice hard as flint. "Connor, shut up and get the job done. Matt, shut up and see what you can do for the woman while the others see to Becker."

Wisely, Connor shut up and started dripping virus-laden fluid onto a glass slide with a small piece of yellow ooze on one side.

**CIA deep cover safe house. London, England. 2:00 PM GMT. **

"All of the activity that we have seen points to active Twelve involvement. The recent assassination was clearly done by an augment, likely a Twelve operative, and we have Taylor's report of running into April in the Forest of Dean to back that up. Now, we need to know if we're dealing with one operative here, or two, or more. If it's just April, we can definitely take her as a team, but if she has serious backup or there's more than one Twelve operative…"

Jason Davis, Operation Falcon Chief Field Officer, didn't need to elaborate. Even Ian had put down his MMORPG and was paying rapt attention.

"We have located the base—we think. Intel is still inconclusive, but my gut is telling me that this is the place. Our plan is a multi-pronged attack, early tomorrow. Taylor, you're on anomaly watch for the day. If you can't solo whatever's out there, let it run. Protocol exception one comes into play here; we're already ignoring JF protocol under the same rule, so if you can't handle anything that pops up, get the hell out of there and give us backup. If the Twelve show up, get out of there as fast as you can fly. Joan, I need you medicated and in top form. We'll need you and your chromatophores—I want to try an infiltration to soften them up before we hit. Everyone else, when we hit, we're going in heavy. Stephanie, Ian, you two are with me, and Joan when we get her. Once we meet up with Joan, I want you, Ian, to double back and cover our retreat. Steph, Joan, I want you to get Villette and get the hell out of there. I'll cause a distraction. Any questions?"

"Do we have a layout?"

"Yeah. You'll like it, Steph—they have an elevator. If Joan can get in, she should be able to get us access."

"Key card, receptionist, how is it run?"

"Looks like key card. They have a guard on the gate to the parking lot who should have one, for convenience's sake if nothing else. Operation Saber personnel have been monitoring the area—looks like a black ops guy masquerading as a rent-a-cop. We'll take him out with a classic Joan bluff—go up there all harmless-looking, then nail him with a dart. No Shockers, I bet they have electrical sensors. Take his outfit, copy him—or her, as the case may be—as best you can, hope the bluff holds long enough to get us access. If you're compromised, hit your emergency button and we'll switch to a full assault and go down the elevator shaft. Clear?"

"Yes, sir. Can I try seduction if she's cute?"

Davis tried to resist, but Joan gave him the Bambi eyes. And flushed red pigment into her lips and cheeks. When her irises went from brown to emerald, Davis gave up.

"…You know what, fine. Just incapacitate the guard, copy him or her while we get the camera—that'll be you with your gecko pads, Steph—and infiltrate. If we catch 'em napping, we might just get 'em."

"Can I bring my computer in case I get bored?"

"No, Ian. And I don't care if the new expansion releases tomorrow, or what alien species you get to play, or how many classic Star Trek actors are going to be doing voiceovers. The game will be there later."

"But I really want to start a Jem'Hadar character!"

Davis sighed. Being a professor had been no preparation for this job. Next lifetime, he was NEVER going to investigate mysterious animal sightings in Vermont backwoods. The flesh-roos had been bad enough, but managing Ian Wilson was a living nightmare.

"Steph, handle your boyfriend. I can't deal right now."

"Yessir. Over here, dumbass. We need to talk."

"Any legitimate questions? Questions that make us sound like actual, valuable covert operatives instead of very expensive amateurs? Because the Director said that she wanted us to act like professionals, now that we have multimillion-dollar genetic alterations."

"Not to mention the skeletons."

"Trust me, Taylor, they're working on more. They hope to get enough for three sets this year."

"That's got to cost a pretty penny."

"You've got that right. Operation Echo's COO told me that their entire budget this year is going into those. Apparently Congress got on their case over my skeleton."

"Is Ian still getting his implants?" Taylor's voice was emotionless and mildly conversational. She was clearly struggling to keep calm.

"Yeah, the Echo guys are running tests on them right now. He should have the operation in a week if all goes well."

"Our families?" Joan's voice was tense.

"Protective custody. Joan, your mom is the exception; we have our men on set."

"She's got another two weeks of filming, last I heard. Who did you put there?"

"Minor augments from the beta team. McCoy and Scott. The rest of the beta team will handle alerts while Jake and Jim man the fort."

"McCoy and Scott used to be Special Ops, right?"

"Yeah. They don't have much field experience, though, so I felt it was best to put them on a relatively safe mission."

"Won't be "safe" if the Twelve go after them."

"It's just a precaution. The Director is certain that our measures to this point have kept knowledge of our families from the Twelve."

"You know damn well that I trust the Director about as far as I can throw her…"

"Not the time, Taylor. She's on our side, and that's what matters. Right, everyone. I want you all to get a good meal, do some light exercise, and then dinner and some solid sleep. Taylor, be sure to get your wings taken care of—I want you in top form tomorrow. All of you. Joan, double meds in the morning, I need you at peak capacity."

Davis clutched his head as he left the briefing room. What a job. Psychopathic superassassins, time-travelling dinosaurs, and time faults.

In retrospect, investigating the carnivorous kangaroos had been a wretched idea.

**Anomaly Research Centre. 3:17 PM GMT. **

Connor tore out of his lab with two only moderately oversized syringes, both full of a disturbingly beige fluid, and slid on his so-ancient-the-treads-were-long-gone trainers down the hallway for about fifteen feet, before ducking around a corner and charging into the infirmary, where isolation curtains had already been set up.

Jess was sitting with Becker, and clutching his hand with a white-knuckled grip. Two soldiers sat with the…whatever she was, in deceptively relaxed postures.

Connor may have been a tactless geek with no social skills, but five years of working with more-tactful people had given him the ability to recognize clandestine guards when he saw them.

"Here we go. One for Becker's IV, one for the woman. That's as concentrated as I can make it. If T4 can kill this stuff, this concentration will definitely do it before the fatality deadline."

Matt grabbed one syringe and headed for Becker.

"You know, I could have done that, just as well!"

"No time. Abby, help Connor figure out if that woman has a human circulatory system."

"Right. Come on, Connor, let's find a vein."

"Fine," Connor grumbled. "The next two doses are being concentrated right now. We'll need to inject those directly into the injury sites. Keep both patients sedated, I don't want either of them waking up."

"Why?"

"Jesus, Matt, why do you think? They're being eaten alive from the inside by a virulent pathogen! OF COURSE we keep them sedated! What are we, monsters?"

Connor left for his lab, shaking his head and muttering about bad sci-fi.

Matt looked at Abby. "When did _he_ get so mature?"

Abby shrugged. "I don't know, and I don't care. Huh, that's weird."

"What?"

"This woman's heart rate is almost a hundred and fifty beats per minute! Even accounting for the infection, that's…"

"Normal, for an augment," said Tanya grimly. "I was able to examine one who was a bird cross. The girl from the Forest of Dean mission. Her resting heart rate was over two hundred."

"That's _insane_."

"They use future technology to alter their operatives. What do you expect?"

**Lester's office. 5:00 PM GMT. **

"I'm sorry for the schedule conflict, but my men really do need me. Yes, tomorrow should be good. Thank you. God save the Queen."

James Lester set down the phone and sighed. Every time. Every damn time, something had to come up. First accidentally securing a knighthood for that odious Burton man, and now this mess.

And it wouldn't do to have an interview while his security chief was dying. That could be seen as callous.

Lester put his Coms link back in. Reserving one of those for himself had been an excellent idea.

"Status report."

"The anomaly is locked, sir, and we swept for creatures," said Emily. "I am back in London and returning to base."

"Be sure to warn the tech teams that it's on a temporal faultline," Connor said. "I want some data on locking a fautlining anomaly, too."

"Do not worry, I made sure that they were informed. The anomaly has not moved since we locked it."

"Great, thanks! Abby, can you just hold her still? Thanks."

"How are the patients?"

"Better than could be expected," said Matt. "It looks like the virus is working, but we don't know how well. The woman is jerking her arms, even though we've got her sedated."

"Involuntary movements. Somebody's trying to pilot her," said Tanya. "Keep her strapped down."

"Pilot? Huh, I never would've guessed. Looks for all the world like she's a restless sleeper."

"You can never tell with people like this, _gospadim_ Temple."

"Will they live?"

"I think so. I just need to make sure that they get hourly injections of me virus. Abby, darling, could you help me remember that? They need hourly injections into the bite sites. I should have the antitoxin ready in an hour, by the way."

"Pardon me, just your boss here, nobody important. Is there anything else at all that I need to know?"

"No, sir. Not off the top of my head."

"Excellent. I shall head home, then. Man the fort for me, Matt; I have a busy day tomorrow."

And he tossed the Coms unit on his desk before Matt could sputter indignantly.

**That's it for part 4. Sorry for being late with this; holidays and so forth, plus I made this one extra-long. **

**Reviews are welcomed. If you hate my stories, please tell me what I'm doing wrong. **

**The finale should be short. Then, on to "episode" 4. **

"**Episode" 4 will be mostly action. April will reveal herself (and not a moment too soon—I'm getting tired of remembering to call her "Tanya" or "the Russian" if I'm writing from someone else's perspective. **

**Bonus points to anyone who recognizes my stealth jokes. **


End file.
